Lia Williams stars as Tennessee Williams’ finest creation, Blanche Dubois, at The Gate. After a trip down the Mississippi and a bump on the head, she tells us how her ride on that streetcar is going.
Blanche DuBois is one of those really caricatured characters – what was your idea of her when you approached the play first?
That she’s not a caricature at all. She’s totally real to me. She’s one of life’s outsiders. She’s alone in a world she struggles to recognize. She has a big, generous and fragile heart and the harsh realities of life leave her bewildered and damaged. She invents a make-believe world full of princes and flowers and kindness as a counter balance. And she has a glorious sense of humour and irony – always a useful weapon and shield
What did you base your accent on?
I took a trip to New Orleans and up the Mississippi for research before I came to Dublin. Some Mississippi folk helped me out.
What’s the line in the play you had most difficulty with or that made you laugh? There’s a lot of ones that can sound quite funny with the accent.
Yes I think she’s very funny. She thinks quickly and has a natural wit. I had difficulty with just about every line because there are so many of them and it nearly killed me to learn them all!
Tennessee Williams is always fascinated by vulnerable women who are mentally unstable, there was a history of it in his family. How big a consideration was this when you starting rehearsing Blanche?
Tennessee was such an heroic writer in a way because he put so much of his own emotional life state in to his characters and particularly in to Blanche. He was blindingly honest with himself, and so is Blanche with herself. So yes, I researched his own chaotic, restless, addiction driven life and his difficult family background in great detail because I knew that the closer I got to him, the closer I would get to Blanche.
The female anxieties Blanche suffers from are timeless – would you agree?
Absolutely I do. It’s difficult to comprehend. Women are targeted as pariahs the world over. It’s just more hidden in some places.
The role has been played by so many famous actresses on stage and on film – is there one version of Blanche that particularly appealed to you?
I loved the film. Vivian Leigh was very fine in that.
What was Ethan McSweeny’s vision for the play from what you understood? Had you worked with him before?
We haven’t worked together before but we met some months before rehearsals when I was asked to play the role and we felt we had like minds. We both wanted to create something suffocating and raw and unsentimental. I think his production is terrific. The world he has created for Blanche in terms of the set, sound, lighting, and a glorious company of gifted actors is transporting for me to be in.
What’s become the joke line in the play that everyone keeps repeating?
We haven’t got one yet… But on the first preview Garrett Lombard who’s a brilliant actor, spoke absolute gobbledygook for about 3 sentences… apparently hilarious. But I was so busy trying to deal with a phone that had come unplugged from the wall while I was meant to be talking into it , a dress that got stuck over my head on stage while i was trying to speak, and a rather unsightly lump that was beginning to appear like a small mountain on the side of my forehead from smacking into the side of the set, that I didn’t notice Garrett’s momentary scramble. He could have been speaking in tongues for all I knew! Which is what I think I did for most of that evening!
Tennessee Williams’ classic A Streetcar Named Desire is running in the Gate Theatre currently with tickets starting at €25 which can be found here.
